The Cruxhttp://discovermagazine.com/rss/blog-feeds/the-cruxBright ideas about important, timely issues in science and technology.http://backend.userland.com/rssTue, 03 Mar 2015 17:34:31 GMTSix Fish That Are Smarter Than We Give Them Credit Forhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/discovercrux/~3/jhUa2f2kFjU/
Name a smart animal. Perhaps dogs, or dolphins, or chimpanzees came to mind. But why not goldfish, salmon, or moray eels?
Most people don’t associate intelligence with fishes. Blame it on the misconception that evolution is linear, with fishes sunk at the primitive end and primates raised near the top. Increasingly, though, scientists are appreciating the full spectrum of fish behaviors in their natural environments, thanks to advances in technology such as underwater ROVs and better recoTue, 03 Mar 2015 17:34:31 GMThttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/?p=5166http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/files/2015/03/fish-brain.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/files/2015/03/fish-brain.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/?p=5166The 'Second Moon' You Didn't Know Earth Hadhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/discovercrux/~3/KvLynrH-TOI/
We all know and love the moon. We’re so assured that we only have one that we don’t even give it a specific name. It is the brightest object in the night sky, and amateur astronomers take great delight in mapping its craters and seas. To date, it is the only other heavenly body with human footprints.
What you might not know is that the moon is not the Earth’s only natural satellite. As recently as 1997, we discovered that another body, 3753 Cruithne, is what’s called a quasi-orbital satelliMon, 02 Mar 2015 20:35:36 GMThttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/?p=5156http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/files/2015/03/Screen-Shot-2015-03-02-at-2.31.05-PM-1024x668.pnghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/files/2015/03/Screen-Shot-2015-03-02-at-2.31.05-PM-1024x668.pnghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/?p=5156Google's Artificial Intelligence Masters Classic Atari Video Gameshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/discovercrux/~3/SkfxR1_K7I8/
Think you’re good at classic arcade games such as Space Invaders, Breakout and Pong? Think again.
In a groundbreaking paper published yesterday in Nature, a team of researchers led by DeepMind co-founder Demis Hassabis reported developing a deep neural network that was able to learn to play such games at an expert level.
What makes this achievement all the more impressive is that the program was not given any background knowledge about the games. It just had access to the score and theThu, 26 Feb 2015 23:04:23 GMThttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/?p=5145http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/files/2015/02/atari-brain.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/files/2015/02/atari-brain.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/?p=5145Pluto a Planet Again? It May Happen This Yearhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/discovercrux/~3/3BH2pwpSNCs/
Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt, and NASA’s Dawn spacecraft will arrive there on March 6.
Pluto is the largest object in the Kuiper belt, and NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft will arrive there on July 15.
These two events will make 2015 an exciting year for solar system exploration and discovery. But there is much more to this story than mere science. I expect 2015 will be the year when general consensus, built upon our new knowledge of these two objects, will return PlutoWed, 25 Feb 2015 18:22:56 GMThttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/?p=5128http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/files/2015/02/planets_iau_2-1024x639.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/files/2015/02/planets_iau_2-1024x639.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/?p=5128Eye Tracking Is Coming Soon to a Computer Near Youhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/discovercrux/~3/po876RBSYIs/
Eye tracking devices sound a lot more like expensive pieces of scientific research equipment than joysticks – yet if the latest announcements about the latest Assassin’s Creed game are anything to go by, eye tracking will become a commonplace feature of how we interact with computers, and particularly games.
Eye trackers provide computers with a user’s gaze position in real time by tracking the position of their pupils. The trackers can either be worn directly on the user’s face, like glMon, 23 Feb 2015 16:51:34 GMThttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/?p=5113http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/files/2015/02/shutterstock_33883552.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/files/2015/02/shutterstock_33883552.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/?p=5113Mars One Finalist: "I Could Sow the Seeds of a New Civilization"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/discovercrux/~3/ChXxvbn6MFc/
I have always been in awe of the night sky, trying to comprehend the vastness of space and the countless wonders it contains. But I have always felt a certain dissatisfaction with only being able to see it at a distance.
One day I imagine that humanity will be able to visit other planets in the solar system, and venture even further to other stars, but this has always seemed very far away. That’s the reason why I applied for the Mars One mission, aimed at starting a human colony on Mars –Fri, 20 Feb 2015 20:41:46 GMThttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/?p=5102http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/files/2015/02/hannah.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/files/2015/02/hannah.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/?p=5102Infinity Is a Beautiful Concept – And It's Ruining Physicshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/discovercrux/~3/XfyK-4k1Wlk/
I was seduced by infinity at an early age. Georg Cantor’s diagonality proof that some infinities are bigger than others mesmerized me, and his infinite hierarchy of infinities blew my mind. The assumption that something truly infinite exists in nature underlies every physics course I’ve ever taught at MIT—and, indeed, all of modern physics. But it’s an untested assumption, which begs the question: Is it actually true?
A Crisis in Physics
There are in fact two separate assumptions: “infFri, 20 Feb 2015 15:00:13 GMThttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/?p=5084http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/files/2015/02/infinity-band.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/files/2015/02/infinity-band.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/?p=5084Gold Jewelry's Dirty Environmental Secrethttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/discovercrux/~3/MucPl_VDmD4/
Gold is a modern expression of love, and every Valentine’s Day thousands of shoppers browse boutique windows full of the stuff. Over 90 countries mine the gold that is fashioned into jewelry, with China currently topping the exporter tables (though as illegal exports are rampant in some countries, exact figures are hard to pin down).
South American countries are also major gold producers, particularly Perú, which ranks variously fifth or sixth worldwide. A global gold rush over the last dSat, 14 Feb 2015 19:32:35 GMThttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/?p=5071http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/files/2015/02/3247577201_fc19a7c1cc_o-1024x682.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/files/2015/02/3247577201_fc19a7c1cc_o-1024x682.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/?p=5071In the Brain, Romantic Love Is Basically an Addictionhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/discovercrux/~3/G0r40DJqdKE/
“If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it,” Albert Einstein reportedly said. I’d like to broaden the definition of addiction—and also retire the scientific idea that all addictions are pathological and harmful.
Since the beginning of formal diagnostics more than fifty years ago, the compulsive pursuit of gambling, food, and sex (known as non-substance rewards) have not been regarded as addictions. Only abuse of alcohol, opioids, cocaine, amphetamines, cannabis, herFri, 13 Feb 2015 17:43:02 GMThttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/?p=5050http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/files/2015/02/shutterstock_241240996-1024x1024.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/files/2015/02/shutterstock_241240996-1024x1024.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/?p=5050Baby Sign Language: Does It Work?http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/discovercrux/~3/8PJDLFxIHiU/
What if babies could tell us what they want, before they start crying for it? Bring in baby signing, a system of symbolic hand gestures for key works such as “milk,” “hot” and “all gone” that are taught to hearing babies as a way to communicate before they can talk.
The sign for milk, for example, is made by opening and closing the hand, while the sign for “more” by tapping the ends of the fingers together.
Now new research has reported that it’s even possible for babies to learn theseWed, 04 Feb 2015 17:29:54 GMThttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/?p=5024http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/files/2015/02/shutterstock_193834664.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/files/2015/02/shutterstock_193834664.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/?p=5024It's Time to Expand Our Definition of "Human Being"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/discovercrux/~3/1MxaIVDDhUA/
It’s difficult to deny that humans began as Homo sapiens, an evolutionary offshoot of the primates. Nevertheless, for most of what is properly called “human history” (that is, the history starting with the invention of writing), most of Homo sapiens have not qualified as “human”—and not simply because they were too young or too disabled.
In sociology, we routinely invoke a trinity of shame—race, class, and gender—to characterize the gap that remains between the normal existence of Homo saMon, 02 Feb 2015 20:15:36 GMThttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/?p=5010http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/files/2015/02/vitruvian-man.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/files/2015/02/vitruvian-man.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/?p=5010The Demise of a Discovery: BICEP2 and Gravitational Waveshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/discovercrux/~3/w6_UoP7wvrI/
Last week, BICEP2 scientists — who in March announced evidence of cosmic inflation, a potentially Nobel-worthy find — threw handfuls of dust on the grave of their own results. The official paper [pdf], just published on the BICEP website, tells the story of how they mistook cosmic dust for “primordial gravitational waves,” and why everybody needs to calm down and stop trying to bury inflation, too.
What’s inflation?
Just 10-35 seconds after the Big Bang, cosmologists (or at least most of tMon, 02 Feb 2015 17:28:12 GMThttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/?p=5006http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/files/2015/02/BICEP2-Twilight__BICEP2-1024x682.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/files/2015/02/BICEP2-Twilight__BICEP2-1024x682.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/?p=5006BICEP2 Was Wrong, But Publicly Sharing the Results Was Righthttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/discovercrux/~3/4huABP4tXmA/
The claim made headlines worldwide, hailing one of the biggest scientific discoveries in decades. After 35 years of research, astronomers said in March, they had found evidence that the universe underwent a brief but ultra-fast expansion when it was roughly a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second old. The research team could see a Nobel Prize looming in the distance. So they popped bottles of bubbly in celebration and shared their excitement with the world.
But results coFri, 30 Jan 2015 21:58:45 GMThttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/?p=4992http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/files/2015/01/Planck_view_of_BICEP2_field_node_full_image_2.pnghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/files/2015/01/Planck_view_of_BICEP2_field_node_full_image_2.pnghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/?p=4992Virtual Bodyswapping Can Reduce Racial Biashttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/discovercrux/~3/oH2sPkLkzbc/
This article was originally published on The Conversation.
In 1959, John Howard Griffin, a white American writer, underwent medical treatments to change his skin appearance and present himself as a black man. He then traveled through the segregated US south to experience the racism endured daily by millions of black Americans. This unparalleled life experiment provided invaluable insights into how the change in Griffin’s own skin color triggered negative and racist behaviors from his fellFri, 30 Jan 2015 19:00:13 GMThttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/?p=4978http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/files/2015/01/Screen-Shot-2015-01-30-at-12.48.31-PM-1024x588.pnghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/files/2015/01/Screen-Shot-2015-01-30-at-12.48.31-PM-1024x588.pnghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/?p=4978What Does Space Sound Like?http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/discovercrux/~3/1JbyLHII_h0/
“Space, the final frontier,” announces James T. Kirk at the start of the first Star Trek episode. As the spaceship Enterprise flies past the screen, the voice sounds as though it was recorded in a very reverberant cathedral. I know space is a big place, but where are the reflections meant to be coming from? And anyway, space is silent or, to quote the catchy tag line from the 1979 movie Alien, “in space, no one can hear you scream.”
For an astronaut unfortunate enough to be caught outsideWed, 28 Jan 2015 21:40:35 GMThttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/?p=4968http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/files/2015/01/AS4-1-410HR-1024x816.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/files/2015/01/AS4-1-410HR-1024x816.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/?p=4968The Bloodthirsty Truth of the Beautiful Orchid Mantishttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/discovercrux/~3/QwVGgPcu0j4/
This article was originally published on The Conversation.
In his 1879 account of wanderings in the Orient, the travel writer James Hingston describes how, in West Java, he was treated to a bizarre experience:
I am taken by my kind host around his garden, and shown, among other things, a flower, a red orchid, that catches and feeds upon live flies. It seized upon a butterfly while I was present, and enclosed it in its pretty but deadly leaves, as a spider would have enveloped it in netwoTue, 27 Jan 2015 17:05:23 GMThttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/?p=4956http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/files/2015/01/shutterstock_167834045.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/files/2015/01/shutterstock_167834045.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/?p=4956Where Will We Live After Earth? http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/discovercrux/~3/0n2R05JXWho/
This article originally appeared on The Conversation.
Some climatologists argue it may be too late to reverse climate change, and it’s just a matter of time before the Earth becomes uninhabitable – if hundreds of years from now. The recent movie Interstellar raised the notion that we may one day have to escape a dying planet. As astrophysicists and avid science fiction fans, we naturally find the prospect of interstellar colonization intriguing and exciting. But is it practical, or even pFri, 23 Jan 2015 20:08:44 GMThttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/?p=4944http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/files/2015/01/shutterstock_164724506.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/files/2015/01/shutterstock_164724506.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/?p=4944Ebola's Possible Future as an Endemic Diseasehttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/discovercrux/~3/rgdZ2bQPusA/
Last fall as the Ebola epidemic continued unabated, experts started discussing something that had never before been bandied about: the idea of Ebola becoming endemic in parts of West Africa. Endemic diseases, like malaria and Lassa fever in that region of Africa, are constant presences. Instead of surfacing periodically, as it always has before now, Ebola in an endemic form would persist in the human population, at low levels of transmission, indefinitely.
The debate was stoked by a papMon, 19 Jan 2015 17:36:23 GMThttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/?p=4935http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/?p=4935Thorium Power Is the Safer Future of Nuclear Energyhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/discovercrux/~3/wZJeOketJKE/
Nuclear power has long been a contentious topic. It generates huge amounts of electricity with zero carbon emissions, and thus is held up as a solution to global energy woes. But it also entails several risks, including weapons development, meltdown, and the hazards of disposing of its waste products.
But those risks and benefits all pertain to a very specific kind of nuclear energy: nuclear fission of uranium or plutonium isotopes. There’s another kind of nuclear energy that’s been waitiFri, 16 Jan 2015 16:57:01 GMThttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/?p=4910http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/files/2015/01/nuclear-plant.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/files/2015/01/nuclear-plant.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/?p=4910When Women Are Rare, Men Are Less Promiscuoushttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/discovercrux/~3/WdDEgFRNGVs/
This article was originally published on The Conversation.
Popular wisdom and established evolutionary science hold that the sexes seek fundamentally different relationships: men want short-term, no-strings-attached relationships whereas women value longer-term, loyal partnerships.
The explanation generally comes down to biological differences between men and women. Because women invest more in reproduction than men do – think pregnancy, morning sickness and stretchmarks – being picky Wed, 14 Jan 2015 18:21:27 GMThttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/?p=4918http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/files/2015/01/bar-talking.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/files/2015/01/bar-talking.jpghttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/?p=4918